The most rest Ive had in a while!

I am at work.

I am listening to the dulcent tones of Bethany Yarrow and her instrumental team.

I am doing data analysis in my comfy (probaby faux leather) chair.

I havent felt this relaxed in a long time! Bliss.

I could almost nod off!

Whirlwind visit

H and I had a fun few days with the Vinsons, but he seemed very glad to be home tonight. His personality has TOTALLY changed over the past week or two. He is most definitely a little boy now. All you people that said I needed to wean him of the need for his mummy were wrong! He has done it himself! To some extent, at least. He still panics if I go to the bathroom and screams my name, banging on the door until I come out, but he plays around the house while I make dinner or clean up after dinner now. But we have also hit the terrible twos I think, either that or he just has more energy than he knows what to do with. Unfortunately I think he has discovered how to scream NO, when another child has a toy he wants or something isnt going according to his plan, so we are going to have to deal with that kind of behaviour somehow.

Our trip went well. We had gymnastics and tea Thursday morning as usual, then we left town around 1130am. H fell asleep almost immediately, which wasnt part of the plan. When he woke up in Jackson, TN an hour and a half later, we stopped for lunch, though he barely ate. We must have looked funny because all of the people (all men) in the Subway where we ate couldnt help but stare at this hugely pregnant woman chatting along merrily with a little blonde headed toddler. He didnt sleep again but we sang children's songs and re-capped our body parts and animal sounds, so he was happy. To my surprise, he was happy playing at this foreign house. I expected him to sit on my lap and not move. He was a little naughty with Jay as he seemed to realise pretty darn quickly that, unlike his other friends, Jay wasnt going to snatch a toy back if he took it from him, so of course, he kept taking Jay's toys. Jays response was to start crying, not what H is used to and it didnt phase him at all. Knox tends to take whatever it is Henry has and then it all seems fair to the both of them. Basically he was a little bully for the weekend and we actually started Time Outs.

Jay was so much more developed than I expected. Almost running round their house, as long as he had something to hold on to. Ive never seen cruisin' like it!

Again, to my incredible surprise H slept well in this foreign pack and play in this foreign house. Id always wondered what time he actually woke up versus what time he started calling for me and having shared a room with him, thank goodness he doesnt call for me as soon as he wakes up, coz its early! We played outside once it warmed up and he napped well during the afternoon. I laid down but didnt fall asleep unfortunately. This morning Summer, H and I popped to Target and Michaels, but I will never set foot in another craft store with my toddler again. Everything in that place was at his level and breakable. He was manic, running from one display to the next trying to rip things off the shelves. It completely wore me out.

After lunch we set off home. H was asleep within 7 minutes of leaving! He only slept 1.5 hours but we managed not to stop! I was slowly sipping my water so as not to fill up and need to pee. I didnt give him his cup until 30 minutes from the house so that he wouldnt need a clean diaper. We sang Old MacDonald a lot, though it was more of a Safari than a Farm, so that we could do lion noises, and monkeys and what not. He played peek-abo with me in the mirror and we made it to Oxford in 4 hours. We had to stop at Kroger as I knew we had no milk and we got some fantastic deals on Organic grapes and apples, some yummy looking oranges and both strawberries and raspberries were 2 for $4, so I couldnt resist, despite it being totally the wrong time of year. He then ate more food than I thought physically possible. Actually, Id like to get opinions on something, if you dont mind. Our dinner tonight was one of his favourite meals, though we dont eat it often because I worry that it is unhealthy, but I really dont think so. We had lots of fresh chopped spinach in scrambled eggs with spaghettios on toast. What do you think, unhealthy or not? After a huge portion of this, 4 eggs, 4 servings of spinach and a can of spaghettios between us, we then demolished a whole carton of raspberries. H ate a mini Oreo and polished off a cup of milk! Where does that tiny child put it all!? After that much spinach though, tomorrow is going to be full of icky diapers for me!

He was soo sooooo happy to be home. A little annoyed at me that we didnt take a bath. In fact, he threw all of his bath toys in the bath and tried to climb over the side! But I am really trying to keep his bed time close to 7pm for my sanity and we just didnt have time. Instead of crawling around the bed at story time, he laid propped up on pillows next to me holding his foot while we read his favourites.

Guess I have to tidy up the debris from the trip then catch up on some work that I missed Wednesday. My jobs never end! Not to mention that my other baby likes to lie with its legs straight out, which is less than comfortable! It was a fun trip, nice to get out the house and do something different, but I am absolutely exhausted now and have all the things I usually do in 4 days, to squeeze into one.

27 weeks

Drove all the way to Memphis today for our mid-wife apt. Thankfully, Lana and Knox accompanied us, so it was more fun. We had minor dramas that made us leave 30 minutes late; Knox jumped in a deep puddle and needed a new outfit and H had a poopy diaper, but we still made it on time.

I have gained a few more pounds, getting near to the 35 lbs I gained with H. Blood pressure was good at 120/78. Baby's heart beat was 148, Lana listened with the old fashioned thingy, I couldnt hear it though. Head is down, as I suspected after Saturdays gymnastics, butt off under the left rib and legs out to the right. Despite being 27 weeks, the fundal height measured in at 29 weeks. Yes, well. Mid-wife thinks its a girl! No basis for this, she just kept calling it 'her'. I got told to eat more, as I full well know, thats why Im feeling so sick all of the time and getting terrible headaches. I just dont ever feel like eating and there is nothing I ever want. Might buy some granola type bar things, Lara or Luna or something LLL, keep on hand. Doctors visit Next the week of Thanksgiving, then Mid-wives Dec 14th. We discussed the Rhogam shot and she sees nothing wrong with getting it and not getting it. We discussed the FLU shot and she is against it, pregnant or not.

After our visit, we went along to the Carriage Crossing Mall in Collierville. I know its silly as I only have three months left, but I bought myself two sweaters. Lana hopefully has some maternity jeans for me with full panels as Im pretty much out of clothes for the bottom half of my body. Would have bought some jeans today but 1) the women in the shop were sooooo rude and 2) they only had 'regular' length, and for $70 I dont want to have to hem!

Off to visit Summer and Jay in Symrna, TN tomorrow, for a few days. Its my rogue road trip!

As for the house, the mudroom has officially been demolished! My house is trashed because the builders keep walking through it to use the bathroom.

Im exhausted.

Time change

I am as free as a bird, with no where to fly.

For about the past month we have been putting Henry to bed at 8pm. It was sort of my fault, it was in anticipation of the time change, its just that the time change was much later than I realised. But last night the clocks went back here in the U.S. Henry didnt wake up until 730am (830am summer time) so that was nice, we all got to lie in! I slept pretty well last night, but being pregnant, pretty well isnt exactly great, so I knew that Danny didnt sleep well at all, thus the lie in this morning was blissful! We had a few hours to play with our Papa, he and Henry cleaned out the car and I got to use the bathroom in peace and quiet, without a certain little person sitting on my lap! That may be more information than you needed, but it really is cause for celebration if I get to use the bathroom on my own! I realised that I hadnt left the house since Friday morning and felt a little confined, so we loaded up the troops and walked to the square. The dogs lay in the sun whilst Henry and I rolled trucks down the courthouse ramp. Lost track of time and didnt make it home until 1230, so we had a quick lunch and H went to sleep. I planted my recent purchases from the Barn and took myself off to bed too! We all slept until almost 5pm again! After some rolling of the trucks down the slide, I cooked us a quick Cous Cous dinner, Henry played while I did the dishes, bath time, story time and bed was at 710pm! That might not seem like a big deal to you, but it means that I am going to have all of my 'jobs' done by 8pm, instead of 9pm. Which means I get to do something I want to do before bed, rather than just having to get my stuff ready for tomorrow and take myself off to bed. I dont feel like working on the curtains tonight, so maybe some yoga is on the cards. I really hope to keep up this 7ish bedtime, though I doubt its possible. It was a bit of a fluster getting all of that done by 7pm. We often dont eat dinner til 6pm on work nights and especially not when Papa is here, because he often doesnt come home from work til 6pm, so fitting it all in will be tough, but it sure is nice having some free time.

If you have trouble convincing your child they should eat vegetables and have to 'hide' them like me, or if you are rushed after work and need a quick fix dinner, try this, there are lots of variations you could do, this is just what I had in the house.

1 zucchini, chopped up really really small (remember your goal here, disguising vegetables!)

1 carrot, chopped up really really small

1 red bell pepper, you guessed it, chopped up really really small

sliced olives

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 cup cous cous (I used Israeli cous cous, easier to disguise the vegetables because it is bigger)

1 cup water

some tasty herbs, salt and pepper

splash of balsamic and lemon juice

Stick everything in a saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for 8 minutes. Leave sitting a couple more minutes off the heat. Stir in grated parmesan.

I chopped everything up in the morning and doused with lemon juice so I could just throw it all in when the time came.

You could use anything you want, spinach, capers, green onions, peas, squash, feta cheese, no cheese, chicken, sausage bla bla bla. If you use meat, make sure it is pre-cooked before you stir it in.

This was enough food for H and I (I had seconds, of course) with a little left over, so Id double it for another adult and then you will have a whole portion of left overs.

On a totally different note, our new baby did some major gymnastics this week and I think it may have turned head down. I had been in rather a lot of pain for a few weeks now and you could see its head sticking out the side of my stomach. But the pain has gone and the kicks and punches seem to be further up than they used to be. I felt like my uterus was ripping away from its ligaments and you could see this giant bulge in my side. Hopefully its head down, and hopefully it stays that way!

Its the small things in life

Our little bonfire party last night was a bit of a whirlwind, but lots of fun. The number of children at our bonfire parties has slowly increased over the years, but last night hit an all time high! There were just 2 of the 5 Crowe kids, 2 of the 3 Finley's, Knox, Leila, 2 Dawson kids and of course, my little man. I think there were still more adults than kids though!

In an untraditional manner, someone brought an effigy to burn. Danny and I were sort of expecting a Guy, as usual, but Walter brought an effigy of a car to symbolise all of the people and pets that we have recently lost to cars. We burned that sucker!

Unfortunately Henry has that nagging cough back and didnt sleep well at all. He was calling my name around 4am, but I must have drifted back off because I woke to my name again around 545am. Then everyone went back to sleep until Tux, wretched dog, barked at 745am. Then a split second later you hear, "Mama!" ugh. But it was good as Henry seemed to have peed through his diaper, pjs and into all of his sheets somehow. Because of this general lack of sleep in the household, tensions were high this morning. Or rather, Mummy was grumpy! As was Henry. Around 1015am we put Henry in his bed to see what happened, and I laid down. I couldnt sleep because Henry was reading allowed to himself (or just sort of chanting his new favourite word "duck") and the new baby was practising its soccer skills. But we all got up in a much better mood after our 20 minutes of quiet time alone.

My 'small thing in life' to celebrate for today is that I discovered how to (sort of) replicate the most delicious Chai tea they serve at the coffee shop in town. Its my naughty indulgence. The one at the coffee shop is caffeinated and is probably a thousand calories, not to mention it costs around $5. I get one every Thursday morning! But if you buy Stash brand, decaf vanilla chai tea and stir in 5 marshmallows and some milk, it tastes pretty similar! And provides me with my sugary fix which I seem to need every few minutes whilst pregnant! Ive already had two cups today!

Big news on the house front: Mud room de- and re-construction starts this week and the kitchen gets ripped out! So if anyone was thinking about coming over for dinner, you'd better hurry up and make it early week because Ill be looking for handouts for the next 6 weeks after that!

Complaint

I dont often use this media to complain about work, but I have found the past hour rather amusing and I feel the need to share!

I am currently working up data carried out by some students at a University elsewhere in the United States. In the interest of anomynity, I shall keep the details to myself. But in the space of just two field sheets I have the following units, not marked, just numbers on a piece of paper: millimeters, centimeters, feet and inches. They are all in totally different places, totally unlabelled, and in fact, the millimeters are in a column labelled feet, though I know this to be a physical impossibility. So Im sitting here bitching, cursing these random people, whom I shall never meet. 1) who uses totally different units on the same piece of paper, let alone in the same day! 2) Who doesnt label the units whenever they are filling out a field form?

Ridiculous the incompetence of some people.

The moral of my story is, if you are ever writing something down, please include the units.

Happy Halloween

I know its a little late for this post, but we took our little man trick or treating yesterday and we all actually had a good time. We probably stayed out a little late, and Henry probably ate too many sweets, but it was fun.

The first house we went to, Henry was the last child to get a piece of candy and it was a tiny mini snickers, which he proceeded to devour. We moved on to the fire station where we went through a particularly scary haunted house and he cried a little. There were lots of lines on North Lamar and that wasnt our idea of fun, and lets face it, we didnt want him filling his basket up with candy anyways! Next he ate a packet of fruit jellies and two tootsie rolls. By now, he was a sugar rampant menace. We walked through the square and on to Holli's Sweet Tooth, an old fashion sweet shop where they have the candy in jars that Henry can reach. We got ice creams and about the time that he started trying to dip his hands into the candy bins, we left. We walked back through the square and down the other side of North Lamar when he started to whine rather a lot, so we headed home. It did end with some crying but I think he was coming off his sugar high and getting tired. It was a fun evening though! I tried to tell Danny next year he can take both kids and I could rest at home, but he said that sounded like hard work!


Yes, I know Im cute and I exploit my mother...



A little shell shocked after the scary masked clown, smoke and strobe lights of the fire house haunted house...oh, and I forgot to mention, I got 8 inches cut off my hair Friday afternoon!
Yes, I can fit an entire mini snickers in my mouth at once...




No, its not twins. Thanks. Ive already been asked several times. How to make a woman feel even better about her self, ask her if she is having twins, or even better, simply state that she is huge. Thanks again.